Hi! Thanks for signing up for our workshop and the 5th Fire Behavior and Fuels Conference! After this four hour tutorial, you'll be able to efficiently use the MesoWest/SynopticLabs MesoNet Application Programming Interface (API) to obtain millions of weather observations from over 43,000 observing stations across North America. Use this data to drive your applications, research, or student activities!
You'll need to request an API key/token before making requests for our data. Please click here to access the API key sign up page. This process is immediate and shouldn't take longer than a few minutes. When you receive an email with your key, make sure to follow the instructions to generate a token. Bring this key/token with you to the workshop!
We will be providing the course materials via Jupyter Hub, which requires no installation of software on your part. However, we intend to shut down that server after the conference, so you may want to install the software on your own computer. The instructions for that are found at https://github.com/mesowx/FBFC-API-Workshop/blob/master/Getting%20Setup.md. We are able to help with the installation process before and after the workshop as well.
Just a laptop! Access to a web browser is all that is required.
We'll update the schedule with links to any slides after the workshop.
| Time | Topic | Relevant Docs |
|---|---|---|
| 0830-0840 | Intro | |
| 0840-0850 | Tech Check | |
| 0850-0900 | MesoWest/SynopticLabs Overview | |
| 0900-0910 | Data Overview | |
| 0910-0930 | Mesonet API Introduction | |
| 0930-0940 | Break | |
| 0940-0950 | Generating keys | Keys and tokens |
| 0950-1010 | Web Resources and the Explorer | |
| 1010-1030 | Response Formats and Output Types | Response Types, Output Types, API Hello World |
| 1030-1040 | Break | |
| 1040-1050 | Ex. 1 Creating simple charts of station data | Charts Example |
| 1050-1105 | Ex. 2 Map creation for conditions near fire | Map Example |
| 1105-1120 | Ex. 3 An email alert bot for changing fire weather conditions | Alert Bot |
| 1120-1135 | Exercise | |
| 1135-1145 | Break | |
| 1145-1205 | Ex. 4 Mini-ROMAN: A web-based tabular display of RAWS stations | JS Example |
| 1205-1220 | Ex. 5 Mapping precip data across Colorado | Precip Map |
| 1220-1230 | Conclusions |